A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Krissii-xx
Summary: After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Kagome returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world.


Happy New Years ! We've made it to 2011. I am so thankful to have fanfiction in my life. I can finally express my thoughts into stories. Even if they aren't finished, I know I will finish them some day. I am so thankful to have gifted writers who could possibly become bestselling authors in the world. So let's make this year out the best. Yesterday was yesterday so lets move with today, we will definitely see a even better day tomorrow.

So here's a new story for you all. You've seen a lot already :).

Based off the Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. Here's

haha, A Great and Terrible Beauty!

Enjoy !

A Great and Terrible Beauty

Chapter 1

June 22, 1895

Bombay, India

"Please tell me that's not going to be part of my birthday dinner this evening."

Kagome was staring into the hissing face of a cobra. A surprisingly pink tongue slithers in and out of a cruel mouth while an Indian man whose eyes are the blue of blindness inclines his head toward her mother and explains in Hindi that cobras make very good eating

Her mother, Euphemia, reaches out a white-gloved finger to stroke the snakes back. "What do you think, Kagome? Now that you're sixteen, will you be dining on cobra?"

The slithery thing makes her shudder. "I think not, thank you."

The old, blind Indian man smiles toothlessly and brings the cobra closer. It's enough to send her reeling back where she bumps into a wooden stand filled with the little statues of Indian deities. One of the statues, a woman who is all arms with a face bent on terror, falls to the ground. Kali, the destroyer. Later Euphemia has accused her of keeping her as an unofficial patron saint. She claims it's because Kagome reached an impossible age. Kagome state emphatically to anyone who will listen that it's all because she refuses to take me to Londen.

"I hear in London, you don't have to defang your meals first," Kagome says. They're moving past the cobra man and into the throng of people crowing every inch of Bombay's frenzied marketplace. Euphemia doesn't answer but waves away an organ-grinder and his monkey. It's unbearably hot. Beneath Kagome's cotton dress and crinolines, swear streaks down her body. The flies dart about her face. She swat at one of the little winged beasts, but it escapes and she could swear she heard it mocking her. Her misery is reaching epidemic proportions.

Overhead, the clouds are thick and dark, giving warnings that this is monsoon season, when floods of rain could fall from the sky in a matter of minutes. In the dusty bazaar the turbaned men chatter and squawk and bargain, lifting brightly colored silks toward us with brown, sunbaked hands. Everywhere there are carts lined with straw baskets offering every sort of war and edible, thin, coppery vases; wooden boxes carved into intricate flower designs; and mangos ripening the heat.

"How much farther to Mrs. Talbot's new house? Couldn't we please take a carriage?" Kagome asks with what hope is a noticeable annoyance.

"It's a nice day for a walk. And I'll thank you to keep a civil tone."

My annoyance has indeed been noted.

Sarita, our long-suffering housekeeper, offers pomegranates in her leathery hand. "Memsahib, these are very nice. Perhaps we will take them to your father, yes?"

If she was a good daughter, she's bring some to her father, watch his brown eyes twinkle as he slices open the rich, red fruit, then eats the tiny seeds with a silver spoon just like a proper British gentleman.

"He'll only stain his white suit," Kagome grumbles. Euphemia starts to say something to her, thinks better of it, sighs, as usual. We used to go everywhere together-visiting ancient temples, exploring local customs, watching Hindu festivals, staying up late to see the streets bloom with candlelight. Now, she barely takes her on social calls. It's as if Kagome's a leper without a colony.

"He _will _stain his suit. He always does," she mumble in her defense, though no one is paying her a bit of attention except for the organ-grinder and his monkey. They're following her every step, hoping to amuse her for money. The high lace collar of her dress is soaked with perspiration. She longed for the cool, lush green of England, which she has only read about in her grandmother's letters. Letters filled with gossip about tea dances and balls and who has scandalized whom half a world away, while she is stranded in boring, dusty India watching an organ-grinder' monkey do a juggling trick with dates, the same trick he's been performing for a year.

"Sarita, that monkey is a trained thief who will be begging for your wages in a moment," Kagome says with a sigh. As if on cue, the furry urchin scrambles up and sits on my shoulder with his palm outstretched. "How would you like to end up in a birthday stew?" She tells him through clenched teeth. The monkey hisses. Euphemia grimaces at Kagome's ill manners and drops a coin in its owner's cup. The monkey grins triumphantly and leaps across my head before running away.

A vendor holds out a carved mask with snarling teeth and elephant ears. Without a word, Euphemia places it over her face. "Find me if you can," she says. IT's a game she's played with Kagome since she could walk-a bit of hide-and-seek meant to make me smile. A child's game.

"I see only my mother," Kagome says, bored. "Same teeth, Same ears."

Euphemia gives the mask back to the vendor. She hit her vanity, her weak point.

"And I see that turning sixteen is not very becoming to my daughter," she says.

"Yes, I am sixteen. _Sixteen._ An age at which most decent girls have been sent for schooling in London." I give the word _decent_ an extra push, hoping to appeal to some maternal sense of shame and propriety.

"This looks a bit on the green side, I think." She's peering intently at a mango. Her fruit inspection is all-consuming.

"No one tried to keep Souta imprisoned in Bombay," I say, invoking my brother's name as a last resort. "He's had four whole years there! And now he's starting at university."

"It's different for men."

"It's not fair. I'll never have a season. I'll end up a spinster with hundreds of cats who all drink milk from china bowls." She's whining. It's unattractive, but Kagome finds she's powerless to stop.

"I see," Euphemia says, finally. "Would you like to be paraded around the ballrooms of London society like some prize horse there to have its breeding capabilities evaluated? Would you still think London was so charming when you were the subject of cruel gossip for the slightest infraaction of the rules. London's not as idyllic as your grandmother's letters make it out to be."

"I wouldn't know. I've never seen it."

"Kagome..." Mother's tone is all warning even as her smile is constant for the Indians. Mustn't let them think we British ladies are so petty as to indulge in arguments on the streets. They only discuss the weather, and when the weather is bad, we pretend not to notice.

Sarita chuckles nervously. "How is it that memsahib is now a young lady? It seems only yesterday you were in the nursery. Oh, look, dates! Your favorites." She breaks into a gap-toothed smile that makes every deeply etched wrinkle in her face come alive. It's hot and I suddenly want to scream, to run away from everything and everyone I've ever known.

"Those dates are probably rotting on the inside. Just like India."

Kagome, that will be quite enough." Mother fixes her with her chestnut brown eyes. Penetrating and wise, people call them. Kagome have the same large, upturned brown eyes. The Indians say they are unsettling, disturbing. Like being watched by a ghost. Sarita smiles down at her feet, keeps her hands busy adjusting her brown sari. Kagome feels a tinge of guilt for saying such a nasty thing about her home. Our home, though I don't really feel at home anywhere these days.

"Memsahib, you do not want to go to London. It is gray and cold an there is no ghee for bread. You wouldn't like it."

A train screams into the depot down near the glittering bay. Bombay. Good bay, it means, though I can't think of anything good about it right now. A dark plume of some from the train stretches up, touching the heavy clouds. Mother watches it rise.

"Yes, cold and gray." She places a hand on her throat, fingering the necklace hanging there, a smale silver medallion of an all-seeing eye atop a cresent moon. A gift from a villager, Mother said. Her good-luck charm.I've never seen her without it.

Sarita puts a hand Mother's arm. "Time to go, memsahib."

Mother pulls her gaze away from the train, drops her hand from her necklace. ". We'll have a lovely time at 's. I'm sure she'll have lovely cakes just for your birthday-"

A man in a white turban and thick black traveling cloak stumbles into her from behind, bumping her hard.

"A thousand pardons, honorable lady." He smiles, offering a deep bow to excuse his rudeness. When he does he reveals a young man behind him wear the same sort of strange cloak. For a moment, the young man and Kagome lock eyes. He isn't much older than she is, probably severnteen if a day with brown skin, a full mouthm and the longest eyelashes she has ever seen. _I know I'm not supposed to find Indian men attractive, but I don't see many young men and I find I'm blushing in spite of myself._ He breaks their gaze and cranes his neck to see over the hordes.

"You should be more careful," Sarita barks at the older man, threatening him with a blow from her arm. "You better not be a thief or you will be punished."

"No, no, memsahib, only I am terribly clumsy." He drops his smile and with it the cheerful simpleton routine. He whispers low to Euphemia in perfectly accented English.

"Naruka is near."

It makes no sense to Kagome, just the rambling of a very clever thief said to distract us. Kagome started to say as much to Euphemia but the look of sheer panic on her face stops her cold. Her eyes are wild as she whips around and scans the crowded streets like she's looking for a lost child.

"What is it? What's the matter?" Kagome asked.

The men are suddenly gone. They've disappeared into the moving crowd, leaving only their footprints in the dust.

"What did that man say to you?'

Euphemia's voice is edged in steel. "It's nothing. He was obviously deranged. The streets are not safe these days." Kagome has never heard her mother sound this way. So hard. So afraid. "Kagome, I think it's best if I go to Mrs. Talbot's alone."

"But- but what about the cake?" It's a ridiculous thing to say, but it's her birthday and she doesn't want to spend it in Mrs. Talbot's sitting room, _I certainly don't want to waste the day alone at home, all because some black-cloaked madman and his cohort have spooked my mother._

Mother pulls her shawl tightly about her shoulders. "We'll have cake later..."

"But you promised-"

"Yes, well, that was before..." She trails off.

"Before what?"

"Before you vexed me so! Really, Kagome, you are in no humor for a visit today. Sarita will see you back."

"I'm in a fine humor," Kagome protest, sounding anything but.

"No, you are not!" Mother's brown eyes find mine. There is something there she never seen before. A vast and terrifying anger that stops her breath. Quick as it comes on her, it's gone and she is Mother again. "You're overtired and need some rest. Tonight, we'll celebrate and I'll let you drink some champagne."

_I'll let you drink some champagne._ There was a time when we did everything together, and now, we can't even walk through the bazaar without sniping at each other. Kagome is an embarrassment and a disapointment. A daughter she does not want to take anywhere, not London or even the home of an old crone who makes weak tea.

The train's whistle shrieks again, making her jump.

"Here, I'll let you wear my necklace, hmmm? Go on, wear it. I know you've always admired it."

Kagome stands, mute, allowing her to adorn me in a necklace she has indeed always wanted, but not it weighs me down, a shiny, hateful thing. A bribe. Mother gives another quick glance to the dusty marketpalce before letting her brown eyes settle on mine.

"There. You look … all grown up." She presses her glove to Kagome's cheek, holds it there as if to memorize it with her fingers. "I'll see you at home."

Kagome doesn't want anyone to notice the tears that are pooling from her eyes, so she tries to think of the wickedest thing she could say and then it's on her lips as she bolt from the marketplace.

"I don't care if you come home at all!"

A/N:

Reviews?

Kagome's going to regret saying that isn't she! So cruel!

R&R

Love,

Krissii

Happy New Years ! 2011 BABY!


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